


Only One Thing I Need To Know

by sabinelagrande



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Please consult notes for which one, Pre-Canon, Secrets, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint thinks he and Phil have an understanding. Phil doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only One Thing I Need To Know

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a common trope, but to tell you which one is to spoil you. So if you like spoilers, proceed to the end notes, and if not, read on!

Clint hadn't been with SHIELD long. He was fresh enough that some of the agents still looked at him with suspicion. Phil approved of suspicion as a rule, but Clint was getting settled in enough that it was becoming unproductive. Clint would make a good operative; his authority problems had been overstated, as far as Phil was concerned. Being mouthy didn't always conflict with following orders.

Phil's main problem with Clint was that he was incredibly attractive. Phil was, however, a professional who was adept at keeping it in his pants, so that wasn't really that much of an issue. Something to keep in mind, but not something that kept him up at night.

By week four, Phil thought everything was more or less settled, but then something inexplicable happened.

There was a knock at his office door, a little later than he expected anyone to come by. Phil locked his computer screen before answering, but the door opened before he could say anything.

Clint stepped inside, quickly closing the door behind him and sitting down in the chair across from Phil's desk. His eyes flicked around the room, scanning for something.

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Can I help you with something?"

Clint nodded towards one of the corners. "This place bugged?"

"Yes," Phil told him.

Clint looked around again. He put his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands. "So who else knows?"

Phil frowned in confusion. "Knows what?"

Clint nodded decisively. "Let's keep it that way," he said, and with that, he got up and walked out.

Phil looked around for the rest of the conversation, but didn't find it. Finally he went back to his work. Sometimes the new ones were squirrelly. To be fair, most of them never grew out of it, but at least Phil was understanding.

\--

The conversation didn't end there.

Clint was usually normal, normal for a SHIELD agent- which was to say that he wasn't very normal at all, but he was abnormal in a way that Phil got. He had a habit of slipping off now and again, but as long as he kept it to times when he wasn't actively needed, Phil didn't mind. He kept strange hours, but anyone who didn't was probably falling down on the job in one way or another. He had this allergy to wearing sleeves, even when undercover, claiming he always ended up ripping them. Stuff like that didn't bother Phil. 

The thing that bothered him the most was Clint's peculiar habit of making jokes that he thought Phil understood, laughing at things Phil said that Phil hadn't meant to be funny. Phil never knew quite how to respond, because saying he didn't know didn't seem to work; Clint seemed to take that as a code phrase, some kind of statement of complicity.

They were sitting in a park, doing recon on yet another group with its hands on yet another variant of outdated but still incredibly dangerous Stark weapons; it was the good kind of recon, sitting at a picnic table eating hamburgers, not hiding in the rafters of a dirty warehouse or spending hours listening to someone else's boring phone calls.

"What kind of arms dealers do their work in parks?" Clint asked, for about the third time. "There are swingsets here."

"What do swingsets have to do with arms dealing?" Phil asked, puzzled.

"Nothing," Clint said. "That's why I'm confused."

Phil shook his head. "You have something right here," he said, touching his finger to the corner of his own mouth to demonstrate.

"Do I?" Clint said, wiping the ketchup away; he grinned as he licked it off his finger, and Phil absolutely didn't look at his tongue.

"Try not to be such a messy eater," Phil said, and Clint laughed like Phil had told the joke of the year.

"Are you going to tell me what we're talking about one day?" Phil asked, frowning grumpily.

Clint grinned. "Nope."

\--

Things changed after Natasha. _Everything_ changed after Natasha.

It was the best disobedient stunt that Clint ever pulled; Phil thought Clint had really gotten over the whole disobedient stunt thing entirely, but apparently he had one more big one left in him. And Natasha spent a week in questioning, and Clint spent a week in the brig, and Phil spent a week visiting Clint in the brig, but nobody got demoted and nobody got disappeared and everything, at least provisionally, worked out.

Clint was good for Natasha, and Natasha was good for Clint. They bonded almost instantly, which Phil hadn't expected given the fact that Clint shot her twice before they brought her in. Then again, she was Natasha; anything short of a head shot was mostly just impolite in her book.

Phil was jealous for about a day and a half. It possibly should have been longer, but one, he could just tell that it wasn't like that, something deeper and different between them, and two, Phil was still intent on keeping it in his pants. Definitely in his pants. Nowhere else. Definitely nowhere in Clint's vicinity.

From very early on, Natasha and Clint had some inside joke that Phil didn't understand; sometimes Natasha called him something that made him smirk and wink at her. Either it wasn't Russian or wasn't a word Phil knew in Russian- but then again, Phil's Russian vocabulary was really mostly just profanity and military orders, and she usually said it so softly that Phil couldn't quite make it out.

A week or two after their first mission together, Phil was just minding his own business, walking down the empty corridor to get some coffee. He heard a light thudding noise, then feet landing behind him. He spun around, dropping into a defensive position, but it was just Clint, looking amused at having startled him.

Phil sighed, relaxing. "Fuck, Barton, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Natasha knows," Clint told him.

"How did you even get here?" Phil asked. "I know the junior agents think you can climb through the vents, but you and I both know that's a movie thing."

"I just wanted it to be clear," Clint said. "You don't have to hide it from Natasha. It's fine."

"Good to know," Phil said, because he was kind of past playing Clint's cryptic game, right at the moment. Clint just nodded at him; Phil turned back, intent on finally making it to his destination and its blessed caffeine. There was that noise again, and when Phil looked over his shoulder, Clint was gone.

Maybe Natasha did know, but when Phil asked her about it, she threw back her head and laughed.

No respect around here.

\--

And then in Queenstown, Phil finally understood.

It didn't go badly. Well, that was something of a lie. It didn't go badly for _them_ ; it went very badly for the other guys. But sometimes you were a secret organization, and sometimes you sent a message to people who _knew_ you were a secret organization, and sometimes that entailed sending two assassins, a handler, and lots and lots of ammunition and knives.

They were almost finished; Natasha and Phil had settled in at the safehouse, waiting to move out at nightfall. Clint made a habit of taking a little time after missions to mop up, to make sure things were totally secure, but he'd be back soon.

Clint came back, alright, climbing through the window as he was wont to do. He wasn't, however, wont to come back covered in blood.

"Jesus Christ, Barton," Phil said, standing up quickly. "What the hell happened? How much of that blood is yours?"

"You should see the other guy," Clint said, laughing, and Natasha shook her head, amused.

"There's an extra shirt in my pack, but you'll have to deal with your own pants," she told him.

"You're too good to me," he said.

"I know, _upírku_ ," she replied, smiling.

"Is no one going to tell me why Barton is covered in blood?" Phil demanded, feeling like he was the only sane person in the room.

"He was already pretty bloody to start with, but then he struggled," Clint said, shrugging. "Real pain in the ass."

"Who struggled?" Phil said. "Who was bloody?"

"The guy I fed on," Clint said, giving him a look like he didn't know what Phil was confused about.

Phil's eyes went wide. " _What?_ " Natasha looked at Clint in confusion, and Clint made a 'Beats me' gesture. "Barton, what the _fuck_ are you talking about?"

Clint opened his mouth as if to speak. He put up a finger, trying it again, but he still didn't say anything.

"What?" Phil said. "What the hell is it?"

"You-" Clint stopped again. "You have no idea what we've been talking about, do you?"

"No!" Phil shouted. "How many times did I tell you I didn't?"

"Well, this is awkward," Natasha said, after a long pause. She hooked a thumb towards the door. "I'm gonna go, actually. Clint should probably do this himself."

"You're abandoning me in my hour of need?" Clint said.

"Yep," Natasha said as she left, not turning back around.

"Barton," Phil said flatly. "I need to know exactly what is going on, and I need to know it now."

"It's, um," Clint said. "It's a little complicated."

"Then I need you to make it simple," Phil said.

"I'm a vampire?" Clint said, wincing.

"Are you asking me or telling me, Barton?" Phil snapped.

"Uh," Clint said. "Telling."

"I want to make sure we are perfectly clear on this," Phil said. "You are telling me that you are a vampire."

"That's what I'm telling you," Clint said. "One vampire, right here."

Phil narrowed his eyes. "Bullshit."

"I don't really know what else to tell you," Clint said.

"Prove it," Phil challenged.

"Right," Clint said. "Um, vampire things that are fast and easy. Um- oh! Okay." He smiled widely, showing his teeth. "Now you don't see it." He moved his tongue around inside his mouth, licking his teeth. "Shit, this is always so much harder when I'm not-" He put the hem of his blood-soaked sleeve in his mouth, sucking on it for a moment. He smiled again, and this time, there were long white fangs where his canines had been. "Now you do."

"You faked that," Phil accused.

"How did I fake that?" Clint said, his voice coming out kind of funny around the fangs.

"I don't know," Phil said. "Yet."

"Okay, um, how about this one?" Clint said, as his fangs retracted. He took a deep breath, concentrating on the floor for a moment.

Outside, Phil heard dogs begin to howl.

"That's all you've got?" Phil said.

"I have fangs, I can control animals with my mind, and that's not enough for you?" Clint said incredulously. "What else do you want? It's four in the fucking afternoon and sundown's not until seven, so I'm a little limited in my powers here. There are exactly two other things I can do right now, and that's feeding and mind control. I refuse to do them to you just to prove a point, and Natasha will literally put a stake through my heart if I try them on her."

Phil crossed his arms. "So I guess we're waiting until nightfall, then."

"You know, most people just run in terror when I tell them this," Clint said. "It's the polite thing to do." He sighed. "Get out of my way. I have to change my fucking shirt."

"How are you even-" Phil said, not even sure how to have this conversation. "You can't pretend to be a vampire when you don't-"

"No on sunlight, grave dirt, and running water," Clint said, pulling his bloody shirt off and tossing it away. "Yes on bats, mist, and wolves. It's complicated on holy symbols and cold skin." He grinned. "Maybe on vampire brides."

" _If_ this is true," Phil said, "why didn't you tell me about two years ago?"

"Look," Clint said. "If I'd known you didn't know, this would have been very different."

"Okay, okay, okay," Phil said, holding up his hand. "Back up. Exactly why did you think I knew you were a mythological creature?"

Clint frowned disapprovingly. "That's a shitty thing to say."

Phil sighed. "Would you prefer a character from folklore?"

"That's a little better," Clint allowed.

"Answer my question," Phil ordered.

"It's, y'know," Clint said, shrugging.

"I _don't_ know," Phil said. "That's why we're having this conversation."

"It's the way you look at me," Clint said.

"How do I look at you?" Phil said, frowning.

"You look at me like I'm dangerous," Clint told him, his voice soft. "Like you know I'm dangerous, but you're not scared. Like you know that no matter what I did, you could resist me, because you're strong enough and you have to."

"You are dangerous," Phil replied. "Even as a human, if you wanted me dead, I wouldn't make it out of this room. But I'm not scared, because I trust you. And I don't want you to take this the wrong way, Barton." He sighed. "But your mind is not what I'm concerned about resisting."

"Oh," Clint said. "So, um. There's that."

"Long story short, I didn't know you were a vampire," Phil said. "And in the future, if anything like that comes up, I would like you to tell me."

"I don't think that's very likely, but I'll give it a shot," Clint said. There was a long pause. "This got weird."

"Yeah, you being a vampire made it weird," Phil said, "but I think it was going to be weird eventually anyway, for reasons that don't have to do with vampires." He looked at Clint for a long moment. There was blood on his lips, but Phil still couldn't look away. "You have mind control, right?"

"Yeah," Clint said.

"Are you using it right now?" Phil asked.

Clint shook his head. "No."

"Then I want to kiss you," Phil said, already leaning in.

"Sounds good," Clint replied, tilting his head. Clint's mouth tasted like blood, but his kisses were firm and hungry; Phil wanted as much as he could handle, and then a little more for the road.

"Mission," Phil said reluctantly, when they finally parted.

"Right," Clint said, putting a hand on his chest. "Mission. Natasha, next room." He let out a breath, giving Phil a hopeful look. "Tomorrow, no mission?"

"No mission tomorrow," Phil confirmed. "Clean up. You'll scare the hell out of our ride."

Clint grinned. "Got it, boss."

Phil rinsed Clint's shirt in the sink and thought about how soon it would be tomorrow.

\--

So Clint was a little bit of a vampire.

All and all, it could have been worse.

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! Clint is a vampire. Don't you wish you'd waited?
> 
> This story has a sequel! Proceed to [I Just Got Out In the Nick of Time](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1136473) for your continued vampire needs.


End file.
